Republic Records president accused of sexual misconduct in open letter

“For a year I shuddered at the idea of being called into your office.”

Republic Records President Charlie Walk attends Rochambeau fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on September 10, 2017 in New York City.
Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows

Charlie Walk, the president of Republic Records who also serves as a judge on Fox's The Four, has been accused of sexual misconduct in an open letter by former employee Tristan Coopersmith. Coopersmith, who now runs a social club called Life Lab, claims that Walk spent the year she worked under him when was 27 harassing her in a number of ways.

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"For a year I shuddered at the idea of being called into your office, where you would stealthily close the door and make lewd comments about my body and share your fantasies of having sex with me," she wrote. "You would instant message me throughout the day making sexual remarks. Truly vulgar words and ideas. Pervasively. You invited me to dinners that in hindsight I had no business being at, but you did it so that you could put your hand on my thigh under the table, every time inching it closer and closer to my sacred place. You did it so you could lean over and whisper disgusting things into my ear and I had to smile so that no one suspected anything. On multiple occasions your wife was sitting right across from us. And then there was that event at your swank pad when you actually cornered me and pushed me into your bedroom and onto your bed. The bed you shared with your wife… your wife who was in the room next door. You being drunk and me being 6 inches taller was my saving grace."

Coopersmith's letter also highlights the ways in which Walk's promises regarding her career, which he asserted he was helping, kept her at the job through all of his behavior, until she finally told his "counterpart," who she says wasn't surprised. She says that he told her there was nothing that could be done, and that she was paid to "keep my mouth shut and my reputation intact."

She ends the letter by forgiving him, noting that "there were so many Charlie Walks."